Sars fear is mastered - for now

MORE than half a million Singapore schoolchildren will start having mandatory daily temperature checks today as Asia's governments underline their joint commitment to keep the resurgent Sars bug at bay.

But, unlike health officials, the region's investors have so far been quite unruffled by the nasty news that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) has re-emerged in China, albeit with just a handful of confirmed and suspected cases to date.

Economists say the studied calmness - in contrast to last year's market mayhem - comes as fund managers and retail investors have become more accustomed to the virus.

They note that fresh reports of Sars have been confined to mainland China, since one case in Taiwan in December, while health managers region-wide are armed with last year's hard-won expertise in containment measures.

The external environment then and now was also markedly different. Last year, Sars accompanied the US-led war in Iraq with the conflict's attendant uncertainties; this year, the global economy appears in better shape with fewer such risks.

'People probably know a little bit more, so you don't get the same blind panic as when the last outbreak started,' said Song Seng Wun, head of regional economics at Singapore brokerage GK Goh.

Memories of that panic remain fresh, along with media reports worldwide dominated by images of populations in protective masks.

The impact on economies was marked and brutal - a Sars-inspired recession in Hong Kong, while Singapore experienced a dramatic single-quarter contraction.

'We have learned from the last time and can isolate it very quickly,' said Steve Brice, chief economist for South East Asia at Standard Chartered. 'The [new] cases so far don't seem to have spread so wildly out of control.'

All that could change if Sars leaps out of China into neighbouring States, forcing governments to launch well-practised measures to make sure normal life continues.

'If we get five cases today and another 10 tomorrow, then there will be a reaction,' said Brice.